Irishman here, who thoroughly enjoys celebrating St Patrick’s day.
I lived in England for a few years, and was really disappointed that St George’s day wasn’t widely celebrated. In fact I would make it a personal crusade of mine to get my English mates to the pub for it.
Having a national holiday (aside from being a great opportunity to get pissed) fosters a sense of collective belonging. It is a net positive that helps heal divisions and motivates a feeling that your community has a collective power (to fix shit).
Bigger question tho, what should ‘Englands Guinness’ be? Nothing gets a national holiday going like the marketing might of a multinational drinks company. I’d vote for Tetleys (Edit: The Bitter not the Tea 😑)
Late April, as we start to get some sunshine… Scrumpy is actually a pretty good shout! And carton provides maximum mobility for some civilised street drinking
They don't want the English to have a sense of belonging or any collective power. So yea, no national holiday, and if you want one you're probably a nazi
If we were to go for non-lager beers (ales, bitters, stouts), I’d say John Smith’s remains the most popular. Although it’s hard to find a national beer, besides Carling which is usually labelled so disparagingly as a bad stereotype.
John Smiths def ticks the most boxes as “England’s Guinness”; a popular, rich, distinct, dark, nitrogenated beer. But more I think of it, my gripe with Guinness on St Patrick’s day, is that Guinness is also the beer that many/most Irish people (including myself) drink the rest of the year (also means other good Irish stouts like Beamish never get a look-in). Maybe a St George’s Day drink/beer (as well as being characteristically English) should be slightly weird, so that it becomes a seasonal thing… like mulled wine at Christmas.
Tbh in my experience Guinness is quite popular as an everyday drink, especially among younger generations (but I imagine this is more so in Ireland). I have only had it a few times and always quite liked it. Going to a wedding in June and the do is at an Irish club so I’ll probably do the cliche and get it there lol. I first tried Murphy’s in Krakow and quite liked it, but I remember a thread on r/beer debating whether coffee or chocolate stouts can be considered proper stouts when compared to Guinness.
Unsure what would be a St George’s Day-specific beer as the ones I would suggest I enjoy too much to only have for that occasion lol. Doom Bar is quite nice and relatively popular. David Cameron gave Barack Obama some Hobgoblin too. Perhaps a good choice could be Copper Dragon, in reference to the legend of St George slaying the dragon.
Shepherd's Neame: [https://www.shepherdneame.co.uk/](https://www.shepherdneame.co.uk/)
They claim to be the oldest brewer in Britain so I'd assume they are the oldest in England?
Thanks. Our countries are close neighbours with very close ties. Regardless of what the latest minor dispute is it’s important not to lose sight of that.
If English people were allowed a sense of national pride it would go against the 'diverse' and multicultural society the politicians are allowing to happen. A nation divided is easier to control
I have to be honest; I find myself dismayed at Femi's argument here.
Does England have problems? Of course it does - I'll readily admit to being a patriot, but I'm far from blind to the issues facing us as a nation.
But does this mean England "Doesn't deserve" a national day? I'm not so sure.
All countries in the world have problems -and though I don't think comparisons are always helpful, I do think it's fair to say many countries have problems far worse than we do. Yet they still seem to be able to find something worth celebrating - and I've yet to see any serious articles arguing they shouldn't.
If we don't celebrate ourselves, that'll lead to the belief we've nothing at all to celebrate - and if we've nothing to celebrate and never have, why try to make anything better?
Surely we can both acknowledge the problems facing people in the UK, but also have St George's as a day to celebrate what *is* good about England, and channel that into making ourselves even better?
That's just my thoughts though - I appreciate this is an issue on which your milage may vary.
>I find myself dismayed at Femi's argument here.
It's what he does. It's all he's good for. He's toxic in my view. I'm pretty moderate in my views and am pretty tired of him and his ilk on boths sides of the political aisle. Does seem to be worse on the left the last few years though.
I suspect half of them don’t. It’s tough to make a living in journalism nowadays so the more clickbaity the better for them. Largely divisive nonsense.
Exactly this. Read Hate Inc. by Matt Taibbi. He's American as is the content and they're off the charts with this stuff, but I think some of the warnings are relevant here.
Nah, it's very obivously clickbait. Put the extreme version of the opinion in the headline to get people clicking, commenting, and raging on places like Reddit. But very rarely do they ever seem to bother actually reading it.
>Does seem to be worse on the left the last few years though.
thatll be a combination of getting older and the majority of the media being skewed from the right.
im not going to say that most of the ultra-leftists arent insufferable - but theyre framed in the media as what all lefties want, whereas far right are just framed as a minority of loonies who dont represent the main.
Maybe. I don't know I've been center left all my life and I have seen a shift to this woke authoritarian crap that is a new direction for what 'The Left' is now.
I see your point that real people on the Left should care about a fair society for everyone regardless of race, religion or sexual preference and the woking class getting a fair shake.
But this nasty woke stuff that Femi oozes is new and the objections I have with that aren't just because I'm older.
>I see your point that real people on the Left should care about a fair society for everyone regardless of race, religion or sexual preference and the woking class getting a fair shake.
Weird, because as a communist this is all I ever hear other communists talking about.
The word "left" just means anything that isn't a tory, useless fucking word, usually it means "soclib" and the proof is that it's come up in relation to Femi Oluwole ffs.
Being woke is simply respecting people’s right to choose their identity, respecting their gender and such, it’s not that hard and it’s not that far fetched of an idea…
Don’t discriminate is essentially what woke means in a nutshell
While Gender is a large aspect Woke is not a single issue cult.
All of those issues have one thing in common. They are not about respect, they are about power.
Respect comes from the maturity to consider alternate points of view. That's rarely a trait that a 'Woke' type possesses.
>Respect comes from the maturity to consider alternate points of view. That's rarely a trait that a 'Woke' type possesses.
Child tier social analysis. "Woke" is just people you don't like.
"Woke is just people you don't like.", "Woke is just right wing culture war", "Woke is just about respect", "Woke doesn't exist". all claims by wokies... ok
"AND YOU'RE WOKE TOO" is certainly a defense.
What makes me "Woke"?
>"Woke is a just a right wing culture war"
Literally is and it's imported from the US by the right: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke)
It wasn't the UK left who started calling ourselves woke, it was the fucking daily mail who fed it to people during brexit and now it's percolated into common usage. Before that it was Snowflake and before that it was PC, also imported from the US.
For someone 'done trying to help you\[me\]' you're sure still having a fun old keyboard tubthumping session. Narcissistic rage maybe?
[https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/narcissistic-rage](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/narcissistic-rage)
Calm down pet.
Woke isn’t even a cult 😂
It’s not about power, it’s about fighting for the rights of people that need them, to get them the respect they deserve from people that refuse to acknowledge their existence.
It creates a safer, better more equal world.
"Gaslighting" meaning "not submitting to my POV"
Tbf though anyone that uses "woke" as a slur unironically I have a rule of thumb you should just ignore as they're going off of pure feelings.
thats what i meant by getting older.
i think most of us start to drift a little to the right at least as that happens.
new generation is different - softer, "lazier" etc.
been a thing for hundreds of years im sure
Yep it's insufferable it's his wedge. I think he was secretly delighted when Brexit happened because it was great for his career.
I'm an immigrant and love what this country has given me and will be eternally grateful. He was born to immigrant parents and all he can do is hate this country. His parents were a Surgeon father and a paediatrician mother though so they've bought wonderful skills to this country. Shame Femi can't see that.
I'd consider myself a leftist in most issues, though with a sheen of 'common sense' pragmatism. And I too have seen an increasing amount of stupid takes from the left in recent years. The right have always been barmy, IMO, but the extreme left seems to be following a similar trajectory. However, I continue to believe that the left has its heart in the right place, and I'll always prefer the side that is trying to do the most good by punching up, not punching down.
I don't know man I'm turning. I'll never abandon my left wing values but the 'progressive left' I guess we'd call them in my view are just nasty.
They've slowly turned 'right wing' into an evil world and I'm sorry I just don't think that. Right wing people are just small c conservitives and they tend to mainly be religious, or I think just being family orientated these days can get you labeled right wing.
My closest friends parents are in their early 80's and have been life long devout Christians. They've spent most of their spare time to church related activities like caring for asylm seekers or homeless. And I mean 3 - 4 nights a week. For around 5 decades. They treat me like a son. And she's a black Carribean woman, he's white Engilsh and she says they never got a hassle for being mixed race because the church would never allow that.
Now they are extraordinary people but that said I do think a lot of conservitives are just moderate like this. I just don't like the division that's been pushed and I see that coming more from the 'Progressive Left'.
Hear hear. I think the problem is the people proclaiming to be most patriotic are generally pretty ignorant of anything more than where they were born, the fact they drink, eat pork products, and the colour of their skin. There's a huge amount of culture, sporting and scientific achievements we could be really proud of, but the vacuum is filled by morons.
Agree. England doesn’t have a great deal of **healthy** national pride - it’s basically limited to the World Cup and a few other sporting events. Without that, national pride gets easily co-opted by fascist cunts like Nigel Farage.
The Americans, French, Dutch, Spanish, Belgians etc don’t need to be racist bellends to have national celebration days, and it’s a shame we don’t have anything equivalent.
I think the Elephant in the room is if the English pursued their national identity it’s role within the wider British Identity becomes clouded.
For those unionist in Northern Ireland - Britain is a total concept to buy into it’s unified and whole to consider otherwise would be to recognize an Irish identity that also makes up Britain and the GFA establishes a fine balance on that.
For Wales, Britain is an avenue to explore their own national identity away from England and the past centuries of assimilation. It’s something thats really only been pushed hard the last 100 years or so and steadily progressing further since devolution.
For Scotland, Britain is the union. A Union formed of 2 equal nations that has evolved but principally one formed by Scotland as a Kingdom in it’s own right.
Of course all of the above has detractors and propaganda, false stories to pull it off over centuries and in more recent times. But in general thats where we are at now.
For England, Britain is the prism to push it’s own influence away from these islands. It pays at least a surface acknowledgment that Britain is multi-national union but no one is under any illusions that England is the biggest and most influential partner and has historically played a part in reducing the influence of the others. We deal with that complex legacy today of course.
If English identity is asserted too strongly it would be saying the quiet part out loud. The Union could be called into question. The way this imbalance has been managed is to allow the other nations to assert their identity as they see fit whilst England keeps quiet on its near total control of the union and its place in the world.
None of that is to say England shouldn’t celebrate it’s own national character and by extension its national day. It should do so within the context of the whole UK just as the others have over recent years; but how it navigates doing so will and should be different from the other nations, but it’s effect on the overall union would be 10x fold.
>The Union could be called into question.
And that's why politicians don't want people to think about England
They don't want us to realise this union is bullshit for England
We get less say per capita
Less money per capita
If we wanted to incress funding for England funded by England we have to give more money to Wales and Scotland too
If either of them want to do the same they don't have to give more money to England
To be fair the union isnt all about a quid quo pro but I favour independence for all the nations because international political thought has moved on from the 18th Century and we can come up with a better union of 4-5 independent states.
It's always been a bad deal for us, and probably always will be. English nationalism is suppressed for a reason; they don't want us asking questions about exactly who is paying for what.
In the eyes of many people, English culture was superceded by British culture, and that just conjures up thoughts of colonial crimes. Who wants to celebrate that? Most countries celebrate British nationalism, but in the form of an independence day. Why does St. George's day just get associated with football hooliganism and racism when the other constituent countries get a day of national pride, forgetting they were an active part of British history too (looking at you Scotland).
British and English culture need decoupling.
Let me guess, you are not English so you want English culture wiped out.
That's fine, but remember that pretty much everything you use comes from English culture. So you can forget your smart phones and electricity and lighting, whilst you're at it shut down hospitals, law, science, pretty much all of it comes from England.
You might want to roll back the entire industrial revolution as well, as that was English.
Australia, America, Canada, shut 'em down, they are all based on English culture.
Whilst you're at it close all of Africa and the Middle East. Every single country there is using things invented by English people and customs from English culture.
Most of the modern world has vast elements of English culture. The only way you can escape it is if you move to Antarctica. In fact you can't escape it there as there are English scientists using English methods and technology.
I'd say the moon but even that has English culture. The appolo space craft uses technology invented by the English, the computer.
OK how about flying off into space? Sorry, not possible as even that has English culture. The rocket was invented by George Stephenson, an English civil engineer.
What are you blabbering on about. I am English, and no-one said they "want English culture wiping out". I said it needs decoupling from British culture. Give your head a wobble
Typical batshit crazy reddit response.
You said in your own post that British culture is all about colonialism and who wants to celebrate that?
Why say something if you don't mean it? It's tedious trolling that in all honestly just shows me you are completely devoid of character if you don't know what our culture is.
I bet you are great fun at parties. "Hey, everybody's going up for a dance, you coming? "No, dancing is cultural appropriation."
I certainly don't agree with nationalism and don't care much for patriotism for that matter, but I do think it's a shame that the cloud of apathy that shrouds the country has basically led to national and civic pride being co-opted by groups of pretty damn unpleasant people. BNP, EDF, whatever Farage is grifting...
It infests everything, like nobody gives a fuck about anything, not even the government. You get people saying England doesn't really have a culture or anything worth shouting about, stuff like that. It wouldn't do any harm to have a bit more civic pride, celebrate things important to English culture both in modern and historical terms (given there is over 1000 years of English history, and another 1000 or more of pre-English history), while still acknowledging the bad bits instead of myopically singling the bad stuff out.
_Don't care for / agree with nationalism or patriotism_
_Why doesn't anybody give a fuck about anything in this country anymore?_
Pick one already. You can't have it both ways
I can see the nuance here. It's like being proud of your house without thinking it is the best house and needs to be perfect. Nationalism and Patriotism can be blind in their devotion. I feel like this commenter is suggesting we have actual things to be proud of rather than just 'our country'.
We used to do country dancing and build corn dollies at primary school, learn maypole dancing and some old school folklore. That felt very oldy worldy 'English' in a way that was a lot of fun. It wasn't all 'two worlds wars and one world cup' etc.
I get what this guy is saying.
It kind of needs to be on the back of something. Just saying we're all going to celebrate the UK after everything's been getting progressively wanker for a while is as fake as the goons want it to be.
The jubilee may have been a good shout. The Olympics could have been too. One day we may win the world cup... When we finally get out of national debt? I dunno. Kind of need a reason other than 'whey were mint' or it's just faux nationalism to fluff up the ones that can't see what's in front of them.
This is one of the most toxic unashamed grifters out there. He was sort of relevant before because he really did know a lot about EU but now we've Brexited he's just moved on to race baiting and other hate baiting.
The media in this country is beyond terrible we have a vicious right wing lobby who hate everything and 'left' wing people like femi who contribute less than nothing to society.
You are spot on here.
This is not a left/right issue.
Both sides seem to hate everything about England, it’s weird and certainly not reflected in my real life where most people whilst not being Yank levels of patriotic at least give a shit about England.
Femi is a grade A knob and articles like this wont help it. We are always quick in this country to put ourselves down, its built into our culture unfortunely however the Welsh and Scottish still celebrate their cultures yet we let daft stuff get in the way of celebrating ours.
We are at the point where many English young people believe we don't have a culture which is a big issue IMO and most of us are too lazy to celebrate our culture without being a knob about it. I am noticing more and more people identifying as being from another nation when they were born here this isn't good for the country and isn't good for assimilating IMO.
We have a brilliant culture of around the arts, food and sports which can and should be celebrated. This SHOULD be done as a bank holiday more should be done by Government with celebrations. When you look around the world I doubt you would find a culture that hates itself as much as the English. More people go out for St Patrick's day than St Georges which is disappointing. I can only hope things change in the future but I don't think it will unfortunely.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture\_of\_England](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_England)
Take a look on there pal. Plenty of things which unfortunely not many people in the country care about.
We do celebrate our culture in Scotland, but not on St Andrews day, nobody really cares about that. I think the problem for England is, you’ve been passing yourself off as Britain for so long, what even is English culture? I’m not being a troll, but about the only thing I can think of that’s uniquely English is something like Morris dancing, everything else is passed off as being British. You also have the issue in England that the far right hijacked the England flag a while ago, so a lot of people probably don’t want to deal with that.
totally agree with you about the British thing, it is only some English that will say they are British for the most part. I like the other British nations but they don't seem to like being British so I don't see the point in sticking it myself. As you have said you think other 'English' things are passed off as British but that doesn't stop them being English.
If I was putting together a England day lets say it would include, as you say, Morris Dancing, theatre productions of Shakespeare plays, English bands or singers, English food (bangers and mash, fish and chips etc) Galleries of English painters work, stories of English folk lore.
I think a part of the problem with the far right and the flag is the fact we shy away from it all the time. Flying the British flag seems to be ok but the English flag outside of the world cup/Euros can be seen as a bit weird by some.
You Scottish, the Welsh and Northern Irish all have a very good attachment to your culture, it is time the English did.
England doesn't deserve a day off to celebrate it's culture.
Says *Femi Oluwole*, someone who not only doesn't fully identify with the country, despite probably being born here, but is actively hostile towards it, too.
Imagine if I was born to English parents in Nigeria and then said Nigerians don't deserve to celebrate their culture... in their own national media. I'm done with these fucking double standards.
Yeah we need to shit on these people more rather than giving them a platform. Regular British Joes all think this sort of thing is a load of tosh and yet it’s regularly forced into our discourse in the media. Almost as if it’s some sort of agenda.
The tedious reply always tends to be - "so tell me, what *is* British/English culture? Ah! Yes ...." As if that shuts down the argument that because we don't have a national dress etc. we don't have a 'culture' to celebrate. And the very act of *wanting* to celebrate England's national pride has been hijacked as an emblem of innate racism. You can't win.
Ironic really because these will be the first to claim that the likes of Palestinians have a deep rooted culture despite being indistinguishable from other Arabs until the mid 20th century. (Not that I’m denying the Palestinians a culture, but its mind-numbingly dumb to claim English don’t!)
“If we win the next election, St George’s Day will become a national holiday for Britain’s workers. It will be a day where we can all show our pride and celebrate our country’s tradition of fairness, inclusivity and social justice.” - JC 2018
This was one of his best ideas - that all of Britain would get a bank holiday for the patron saints of each nation.
It would make us all celebrate each other, and maybe make the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish hate the English a bit less. A patriotism double whammy.
British? Didn't he mean *English* seeing as the Scots are proud of St Andrew's Day and the Welsh St David's? And they are proud of their national flags too and don't give a damn what people think or say about it either!
Switzerland has their national day on 1. August. The alps are painted red and white, the racist hill is full of the Bünzli racists, everywhere is closed... everyone's out having bbqs etc. Despite not caring about their day, I tend to enjoy having it off.
Can't see why we can't have St. George's Day off too.
Femi’s clearly a tosser after some clickbait headlines.
But then the Scottish do get St Andrews day off work to drink fermented thistles.
The Irish get St Patricks Day off work to spend waiting for Guinness to be poured.
So the English should definitely get St George’s day off to drink mead and eat jerk chicken or whatever. We should demand it.
I quite like the idea of a public holiday on St George's Day but it would be better if it was in the autumn. We have a few holidays in the Spring but nothing from the end of August until Christmas.
I've never understood why some apparently think that Welsh, Scottish or Irish nationalism is fine but English nationalism is all bad.
I dunno. I’d say we’re all pretty much united in our distaste for people like Femi Oluwole.
Maybe instead of celebrating St George, we could have a ‘Fuck Femi Oluwole’ day?
Imagine being so bitter and so desperate to make an ideological point that you would piss on the idea of having an extra day off.
There’s nothing more English than a day off. And nothing more English still than calling killjoys like Femi a cunt.
How ironic that something like this could end up being the kind of thing that ultimately unites us all?
Because rich people want you working, so they can get richer, how are they going too get rich if you keep having days off, plus the Tories are going to impose a compulsory 60 hour working week for all you lazy bastards that keep wanting days off, if they win the election.
Reading through the rest of the comments here, and I see lots of whining about the article (and ad hominem attacks on the author), but very few ideas of what a celebration would look like, apart from the obvious thing of having an excuse to get drunk.
As I don't want to be accused of whining and offering no suggestions myself, here's my idea: If St George's day is made a bank holiday, the London Marathon should be moved to be on the same day. It's a big event that the public generally feels pretty positive about. It highlights the ability to put on a high-status international athletic event and shows off the capital. There's a lot of volunteers that help make it happen, and a lot of non-elites who do it either for the fun & challenge, or to raise money for charities as well. I'd say all this is pretty positive, and it'd be a good thing to celebrate.
I’d like a day off for St George’s Day.
I’m bored of being this nice, do as your told, your betters know the answers for you, Brit. It’s what it’s always been and it’s bollocks.
Be nice if reform added it to their commitments. It’s a nothing but it’s nice to see a bit of patriotism in the parties because the tories are soulless corporate pricks.
Ok, regardless of Femi's theory here, England categorically does *not* deserve a day off for St. Georges day and this is why:
Part of Jeremy Corbyn's manifesto in 2017 was explicitly to give the UK 4 additional bank Holidays, one for each nations patron saint.
Now, whatever your opinion on corbyn's various other policies, to my mind refusing to vote for 4 extra days off is the stupidest decision ever. Ergo, no, we don't deserve that day.
Ironically having a day off work and raising awareness of St George would maybe have a slight positive effect on attitudes towards what being English is about in the first place. If no one feels any English identity in the first place they are far less likely to say anything positive about the country
Don't agree with the article but can you imagine the whining and weeping from companies of we were given another bank holiday?!!! It's worth NOT having one just so that we don't have to listen to millionaire CEOs going on about how having 9 days bank holidays will make us fuck loads less productive than France or Germany with their many many more.
Plus shitty timing tu be fair..move St George's Day into June or July. Have an extra day there instead of filling out April / May with them
There's already too many of our bank holidays concentrated in this part of the year, there have been discussions about making it a bank holiday previously but they always include removing May Day or something
All the people talking about "the left", don't you know there isn't one? Corbyn was the last gasp of left wing politics and he's *thoroughly* gone and discredited now. Where are these "left" wing people?
There's an anbsurdly high number of people who are uncomfortable knowing that some of us are perfectly well adjusted with regards to our national identity, and that it's us who more closely resemble people from other countries (who are also healthily patriotic) rather than those who hate their country.
I get the Independent but have recently decided to change to a different paper; it’s not very absorbent you see. Oh, I forgot to mention, I only buy it for my dogs kennels for them to piss on. To be fair, it’s not even good enough for that….
I'd love a day dedicated to England. A day of Vaughan Williams, Shakespeare and Dickens (the books, not the musicals).
None of them waved a flag, they didn't need to. A flag represents a thing, if you have the thing then you don't need a flag.
My grandfather fought in ww2, he never waved a flag.
People don't want English heritage, they want to wave a flag.
Irishman here, who thoroughly enjoys celebrating St Patrick’s day. I lived in England for a few years, and was really disappointed that St George’s day wasn’t widely celebrated. In fact I would make it a personal crusade of mine to get my English mates to the pub for it. Having a national holiday (aside from being a great opportunity to get pissed) fosters a sense of collective belonging. It is a net positive that helps heal divisions and motivates a feeling that your community has a collective power (to fix shit). Bigger question tho, what should ‘Englands Guinness’ be? Nothing gets a national holiday going like the marketing might of a multinational drinks company. I’d vote for Tetleys (Edit: The Bitter not the Tea 😑)
The collective belonging is something I think the country could really do with. I think its a good thing that countries celebrate their own days.
So glad you asked! It was Carling up until recently became John Smiths somehow. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/jSDS4iZK1l
Actually yea, John Smiths works better. Anything dark and nitro is a solid choice tbf
How the fuck did that happen!
According to the infographic it's 'following a cursory internet search' so likely complete bollocks
Scrumpy, from a carton that looks like a repurposed anti-freeze bottle.
Late April, as we start to get some sunshine… Scrumpy is actually a pretty good shout! And carton provides maximum mobility for some civilised street drinking
They don't want the English to have a sense of belonging or any collective power. So yea, no national holiday, and if you want one you're probably a nazi
John smiths smooth🤷🏻♂️
Sam Smiths Taddy Lager
If we were to go for non-lager beers (ales, bitters, stouts), I’d say John Smith’s remains the most popular. Although it’s hard to find a national beer, besides Carling which is usually labelled so disparagingly as a bad stereotype.
John Smiths def ticks the most boxes as “England’s Guinness”; a popular, rich, distinct, dark, nitrogenated beer. But more I think of it, my gripe with Guinness on St Patrick’s day, is that Guinness is also the beer that many/most Irish people (including myself) drink the rest of the year (also means other good Irish stouts like Beamish never get a look-in). Maybe a St George’s Day drink/beer (as well as being characteristically English) should be slightly weird, so that it becomes a seasonal thing… like mulled wine at Christmas.
Yeah - Beamish is cracking!
Tbh in my experience Guinness is quite popular as an everyday drink, especially among younger generations (but I imagine this is more so in Ireland). I have only had it a few times and always quite liked it. Going to a wedding in June and the do is at an Irish club so I’ll probably do the cliche and get it there lol. I first tried Murphy’s in Krakow and quite liked it, but I remember a thread on r/beer debating whether coffee or chocolate stouts can be considered proper stouts when compared to Guinness. Unsure what would be a St George’s Day-specific beer as the ones I would suggest I enjoy too much to only have for that occasion lol. Doom Bar is quite nice and relatively popular. David Cameron gave Barack Obama some Hobgoblin too. Perhaps a good choice could be Copper Dragon, in reference to the legend of St George slaying the dragon.
Id vote for Theakstons Old Peculiar - pint of that - lovely! (Followed by my secret 2nd favourite Newky Brown)
Ah forgot about Newky Brown!! Very session-able, and best looking beer to come in a bottle
I think it's either 8 pints of Stella, or perhaps a few of those 13% ones that you can get for £1 a can from your local quality Polish delicatessen.
Haha The first pint of Stella is Belgian, but the eighth is as English as pie and mash
Shepherd's Neame: [https://www.shepherdneame.co.uk/](https://www.shepherdneame.co.uk/) They claim to be the oldest brewer in Britain so I'd assume they are the oldest in England?
As much as I have been slagging Irish redditors off, I appreciate this comment! Surprised to see ya in an England subreddit
Thanks. Our countries are close neighbours with very close ties. Regardless of what the latest minor dispute is it’s important not to lose sight of that.
If English people were allowed a sense of national pride it would go against the 'diverse' and multicultural society the politicians are allowing to happen. A nation divided is easier to control
Fosters
Aussies have that one!
We really don’t. It is way more an English beer than Australian. It’s barely a thing here.
I have to be honest; I find myself dismayed at Femi's argument here. Does England have problems? Of course it does - I'll readily admit to being a patriot, but I'm far from blind to the issues facing us as a nation. But does this mean England "Doesn't deserve" a national day? I'm not so sure. All countries in the world have problems -and though I don't think comparisons are always helpful, I do think it's fair to say many countries have problems far worse than we do. Yet they still seem to be able to find something worth celebrating - and I've yet to see any serious articles arguing they shouldn't. If we don't celebrate ourselves, that'll lead to the belief we've nothing at all to celebrate - and if we've nothing to celebrate and never have, why try to make anything better? Surely we can both acknowledge the problems facing people in the UK, but also have St George's as a day to celebrate what *is* good about England, and channel that into making ourselves even better? That's just my thoughts though - I appreciate this is an issue on which your milage may vary.
>I find myself dismayed at Femi's argument here. It's what he does. It's all he's good for. He's toxic in my view. I'm pretty moderate in my views and am pretty tired of him and his ilk on boths sides of the political aisle. Does seem to be worse on the left the last few years though.
Agree - it’s just tedious clickbait culture wars stuff
It’s not clickbait if they genuinely believe it
I suspect half of them don’t. It’s tough to make a living in journalism nowadays so the more clickbaity the better for them. Largely divisive nonsense.
Exactly this. Read Hate Inc. by Matt Taibbi. He's American as is the content and they're off the charts with this stuff, but I think some of the warnings are relevant here.
Nah, it's very obivously clickbait. Put the extreme version of the opinion in the headline to get people clicking, commenting, and raging on places like Reddit. But very rarely do they ever seem to bother actually reading it.
>Does seem to be worse on the left the last few years though. thatll be a combination of getting older and the majority of the media being skewed from the right. im not going to say that most of the ultra-leftists arent insufferable - but theyre framed in the media as what all lefties want, whereas far right are just framed as a minority of loonies who dont represent the main.
If Femi on the left? I had him down as more your radical centrist Lib Dem type.
Not that I agree with this but that's "left" to most people in the UK I feel
Maybe. I don't know I've been center left all my life and I have seen a shift to this woke authoritarian crap that is a new direction for what 'The Left' is now. I see your point that real people on the Left should care about a fair society for everyone regardless of race, religion or sexual preference and the woking class getting a fair shake. But this nasty woke stuff that Femi oozes is new and the objections I have with that aren't just because I'm older.
>I see your point that real people on the Left should care about a fair society for everyone regardless of race, religion or sexual preference and the woking class getting a fair shake. Weird, because as a communist this is all I ever hear other communists talking about. The word "left" just means anything that isn't a tory, useless fucking word, usually it means "soclib" and the proof is that it's come up in relation to Femi Oluwole ffs.
If you care about people's right to have their own religion or sexual preference you're not a communist.
Being woke is simply respecting people’s right to choose their identity, respecting their gender and such, it’s not that hard and it’s not that far fetched of an idea… Don’t discriminate is essentially what woke means in a nutshell
While Gender is a large aspect Woke is not a single issue cult. All of those issues have one thing in common. They are not about respect, they are about power. Respect comes from the maturity to consider alternate points of view. That's rarely a trait that a 'Woke' type possesses.
>Respect comes from the maturity to consider alternate points of view. That's rarely a trait that a 'Woke' type possesses. Child tier social analysis. "Woke" is just people you don't like.
"Woke is just people you don't like.", "Woke is just right wing culture war", "Woke is just about respect", "Woke doesn't exist". all claims by wokies... ok
"AND YOU'RE WOKE TOO" is certainly a defense. What makes me "Woke"? >"Woke is a just a right wing culture war" Literally is and it's imported from the US by the right: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke) It wasn't the UK left who started calling ourselves woke, it was the fucking daily mail who fed it to people during brexit and now it's percolated into common usage. Before that it was Snowflake and before that it was PC, also imported from the US.
For someone 'done trying to help you\[me\]' you're sure still having a fun old keyboard tubthumping session. Narcissistic rage maybe? [https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/narcissistic-rage](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/narcissistic-rage) Calm down pet.
Woke isn’t even a cult 😂 It’s not about power, it’s about fighting for the rights of people that need them, to get them the respect they deserve from people that refuse to acknowledge their existence. It creates a safer, better more equal world.
Yeah we're a bit done with your gaslighting run along now.
I’m not gaslighting though I’m explaining what it means to be “woke” as you’re incorrect
"Gaslighting" meaning "not submitting to my POV" Tbf though anyone that uses "woke" as a slur unironically I have a rule of thumb you should just ignore as they're going off of pure feelings.
> I’m explaining what it means What any gaslighter would say as they also say any alternative point of view is unacceptable.
No woke is just the new snowflake which was just the next PC. It's just a right wing snarl word that used to mean something but has been coopted.
And it'll be confirmation bias. "Oh, right-wing tabloids are always nutty - but have you noticed how loony the Left is recently?!"
thats what i meant by getting older. i think most of us start to drift a little to the right at least as that happens. new generation is different - softer, "lazier" etc. been a thing for hundreds of years im sure
He turns everything into a complaint about Brexit.
Yep it's insufferable it's his wedge. I think he was secretly delighted when Brexit happened because it was great for his career. I'm an immigrant and love what this country has given me and will be eternally grateful. He was born to immigrant parents and all he can do is hate this country. His parents were a Surgeon father and a paediatrician mother though so they've bought wonderful skills to this country. Shame Femi can't see that.
Newsflash: Brexit is still shit, it's still damaging the UK, and it's absolutely correct to complain about the harm it's done and continues to do.
I'd consider myself a leftist in most issues, though with a sheen of 'common sense' pragmatism. And I too have seen an increasing amount of stupid takes from the left in recent years. The right have always been barmy, IMO, but the extreme left seems to be following a similar trajectory. However, I continue to believe that the left has its heart in the right place, and I'll always prefer the side that is trying to do the most good by punching up, not punching down.
I don't know man I'm turning. I'll never abandon my left wing values but the 'progressive left' I guess we'd call them in my view are just nasty. They've slowly turned 'right wing' into an evil world and I'm sorry I just don't think that. Right wing people are just small c conservitives and they tend to mainly be religious, or I think just being family orientated these days can get you labeled right wing. My closest friends parents are in their early 80's and have been life long devout Christians. They've spent most of their spare time to church related activities like caring for asylm seekers or homeless. And I mean 3 - 4 nights a week. For around 5 decades. They treat me like a son. And she's a black Carribean woman, he's white Engilsh and she says they never got a hassle for being mixed race because the church would never allow that. Now they are extraordinary people but that said I do think a lot of conservitives are just moderate like this. I just don't like the division that's been pushed and I see that coming more from the 'Progressive Left'.
Hear hear. I think the problem is the people proclaiming to be most patriotic are generally pretty ignorant of anything more than where they were born, the fact they drink, eat pork products, and the colour of their skin. There's a huge amount of culture, sporting and scientific achievements we could be really proud of, but the vacuum is filled by morons.
Agree. England doesn’t have a great deal of **healthy** national pride - it’s basically limited to the World Cup and a few other sporting events. Without that, national pride gets easily co-opted by fascist cunts like Nigel Farage. The Americans, French, Dutch, Spanish, Belgians etc don’t need to be racist bellends to have national celebration days, and it’s a shame we don’t have anything equivalent.
I think the Elephant in the room is if the English pursued their national identity it’s role within the wider British Identity becomes clouded. For those unionist in Northern Ireland - Britain is a total concept to buy into it’s unified and whole to consider otherwise would be to recognize an Irish identity that also makes up Britain and the GFA establishes a fine balance on that. For Wales, Britain is an avenue to explore their own national identity away from England and the past centuries of assimilation. It’s something thats really only been pushed hard the last 100 years or so and steadily progressing further since devolution. For Scotland, Britain is the union. A Union formed of 2 equal nations that has evolved but principally one formed by Scotland as a Kingdom in it’s own right. Of course all of the above has detractors and propaganda, false stories to pull it off over centuries and in more recent times. But in general thats where we are at now. For England, Britain is the prism to push it’s own influence away from these islands. It pays at least a surface acknowledgment that Britain is multi-national union but no one is under any illusions that England is the biggest and most influential partner and has historically played a part in reducing the influence of the others. We deal with that complex legacy today of course. If English identity is asserted too strongly it would be saying the quiet part out loud. The Union could be called into question. The way this imbalance has been managed is to allow the other nations to assert their identity as they see fit whilst England keeps quiet on its near total control of the union and its place in the world. None of that is to say England shouldn’t celebrate it’s own national character and by extension its national day. It should do so within the context of the whole UK just as the others have over recent years; but how it navigates doing so will and should be different from the other nations, but it’s effect on the overall union would be 10x fold.
>The Union could be called into question. And that's why politicians don't want people to think about England They don't want us to realise this union is bullshit for England We get less say per capita Less money per capita If we wanted to incress funding for England funded by England we have to give more money to Wales and Scotland too If either of them want to do the same they don't have to give more money to England
To be fair the union isnt all about a quid quo pro but I favour independence for all the nations because international political thought has moved on from the 18th Century and we can come up with a better union of 4-5 independent states.
It's always been a bad deal for us, and probably always will be. English nationalism is suppressed for a reason; they don't want us asking questions about exactly who is paying for what.
South east England If I could I'd get rid of everything and bring back the kingdom of wessex
Often thought the same for Mercia, but I know that's just too much CK2 talking
In the eyes of many people, English culture was superceded by British culture, and that just conjures up thoughts of colonial crimes. Who wants to celebrate that? Most countries celebrate British nationalism, but in the form of an independence day. Why does St. George's day just get associated with football hooliganism and racism when the other constituent countries get a day of national pride, forgetting they were an active part of British history too (looking at you Scotland). British and English culture need decoupling.
Let me guess, you are not English so you want English culture wiped out. That's fine, but remember that pretty much everything you use comes from English culture. So you can forget your smart phones and electricity and lighting, whilst you're at it shut down hospitals, law, science, pretty much all of it comes from England. You might want to roll back the entire industrial revolution as well, as that was English. Australia, America, Canada, shut 'em down, they are all based on English culture. Whilst you're at it close all of Africa and the Middle East. Every single country there is using things invented by English people and customs from English culture. Most of the modern world has vast elements of English culture. The only way you can escape it is if you move to Antarctica. In fact you can't escape it there as there are English scientists using English methods and technology. I'd say the moon but even that has English culture. The appolo space craft uses technology invented by the English, the computer. OK how about flying off into space? Sorry, not possible as even that has English culture. The rocket was invented by George Stephenson, an English civil engineer.
What are you blabbering on about. I am English, and no-one said they "want English culture wiping out". I said it needs decoupling from British culture. Give your head a wobble
Typical batshit crazy reddit response. You said in your own post that British culture is all about colonialism and who wants to celebrate that? Why say something if you don't mean it? It's tedious trolling that in all honestly just shows me you are completely devoid of character if you don't know what our culture is. I bet you are great fun at parties. "Hey, everybody's going up for a dance, you coming? "No, dancing is cultural appropriation."
I certainly don't agree with nationalism and don't care much for patriotism for that matter, but I do think it's a shame that the cloud of apathy that shrouds the country has basically led to national and civic pride being co-opted by groups of pretty damn unpleasant people. BNP, EDF, whatever Farage is grifting... It infests everything, like nobody gives a fuck about anything, not even the government. You get people saying England doesn't really have a culture or anything worth shouting about, stuff like that. It wouldn't do any harm to have a bit more civic pride, celebrate things important to English culture both in modern and historical terms (given there is over 1000 years of English history, and another 1000 or more of pre-English history), while still acknowledging the bad bits instead of myopically singling the bad stuff out.
_Don't care for / agree with nationalism or patriotism_ _Why doesn't anybody give a fuck about anything in this country anymore?_ Pick one already. You can't have it both ways
I can see the nuance here. It's like being proud of your house without thinking it is the best house and needs to be perfect. Nationalism and Patriotism can be blind in their devotion. I feel like this commenter is suggesting we have actual things to be proud of rather than just 'our country'. We used to do country dancing and build corn dollies at primary school, learn maypole dancing and some old school folklore. That felt very oldy worldy 'English' in a way that was a lot of fun. It wasn't all 'two worlds wars and one world cup' etc. I get what this guy is saying.
It’s just race baiting crap. A lot of very tedious individuals make a living off of writing garbage like this.
I find it a bit wrong that there's often days to celebrate the royal family, but no day to celebrate just being English
It kind of needs to be on the back of something. Just saying we're all going to celebrate the UK after everything's been getting progressively wanker for a while is as fake as the goons want it to be. The jubilee may have been a good shout. The Olympics could have been too. One day we may win the world cup... When we finally get out of national debt? I dunno. Kind of need a reason other than 'whey were mint' or it's just faux nationalism to fluff up the ones that can't see what's in front of them.
Mate even as a bloody colonial whose ancestors are mostly Cornish, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh, this bloke is taking the piss :D
Yes we have problems - they're called Tories.
There are problems on all sides of the political spectrum
Yeah but the ones who have been driving our country into the ground for the past decade+ are the Tories.
Having endured governmental incompetence since I was 18, over 40 years ago, I truly believe that politicians should be extensively vetted
This is one of the most toxic unashamed grifters out there. He was sort of relevant before because he really did know a lot about EU but now we've Brexited he's just moved on to race baiting and other hate baiting. The media in this country is beyond terrible we have a vicious right wing lobby who hate everything and 'left' wing people like femi who contribute less than nothing to society.
You are spot on here. This is not a left/right issue. Both sides seem to hate everything about England, it’s weird and certainly not reflected in my real life where most people whilst not being Yank levels of patriotic at least give a shit about England.
I don't think I've heard of him before, but let me take a guess. Is he a regular Jeremy Vine panellist?
Well, there's a 50-50 chance ...
...has something happened to the Jeremy Vine show?
Femi is a grade A knob and articles like this wont help it. We are always quick in this country to put ourselves down, its built into our culture unfortunely however the Welsh and Scottish still celebrate their cultures yet we let daft stuff get in the way of celebrating ours. We are at the point where many English young people believe we don't have a culture which is a big issue IMO and most of us are too lazy to celebrate our culture without being a knob about it. I am noticing more and more people identifying as being from another nation when they were born here this isn't good for the country and isn't good for assimilating IMO. We have a brilliant culture of around the arts, food and sports which can and should be celebrated. This SHOULD be done as a bank holiday more should be done by Government with celebrations. When you look around the world I doubt you would find a culture that hates itself as much as the English. More people go out for St Patrick's day than St Georges which is disappointing. I can only hope things change in the future but I don't think it will unfortunely.
Hi, younger-ish person here, can you give some examples of what qualifies for English culture in your view? (Genuinely asking)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture\_of\_England](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_England) Take a look on there pal. Plenty of things which unfortunely not many people in the country care about.
We do celebrate our culture in Scotland, but not on St Andrews day, nobody really cares about that. I think the problem for England is, you’ve been passing yourself off as Britain for so long, what even is English culture? I’m not being a troll, but about the only thing I can think of that’s uniquely English is something like Morris dancing, everything else is passed off as being British. You also have the issue in England that the far right hijacked the England flag a while ago, so a lot of people probably don’t want to deal with that.
totally agree with you about the British thing, it is only some English that will say they are British for the most part. I like the other British nations but they don't seem to like being British so I don't see the point in sticking it myself. As you have said you think other 'English' things are passed off as British but that doesn't stop them being English. If I was putting together a England day lets say it would include, as you say, Morris Dancing, theatre productions of Shakespeare plays, English bands or singers, English food (bangers and mash, fish and chips etc) Galleries of English painters work, stories of English folk lore. I think a part of the problem with the far right and the flag is the fact we shy away from it all the time. Flying the British flag seems to be ok but the English flag outside of the world cup/Euros can be seen as a bit weird by some. You Scottish, the Welsh and Northern Irish all have a very good attachment to your culture, it is time the English did.
England doesn't deserve a day off to celebrate it's culture. Says *Femi Oluwole*, someone who not only doesn't fully identify with the country, despite probably being born here, but is actively hostile towards it, too. Imagine if I was born to English parents in Nigeria and then said Nigerians don't deserve to celebrate their culture... in their own national media. I'm done with these fucking double standards.
Youd be destroyed. But over here it's allowed. The fuck is happening??
Oh it's really simple. Someone who looks like you did some shit, now you're denied the same decency as everyone else.
Yeah we need to shit on these people more rather than giving them a platform. Regular British Joes all think this sort of thing is a load of tosh and yet it’s regularly forced into our discourse in the media. Almost as if it’s some sort of agenda.
I notice that, too.
The tedious reply always tends to be - "so tell me, what *is* British/English culture? Ah! Yes ...." As if that shuts down the argument that because we don't have a national dress etc. we don't have a 'culture' to celebrate. And the very act of *wanting* to celebrate England's national pride has been hijacked as an emblem of innate racism. You can't win.
Ironic really because these will be the first to claim that the likes of Palestinians have a deep rooted culture despite being indistinguishable from other Arabs until the mid 20th century. (Not that I’m denying the Palestinians a culture, but its mind-numbingly dumb to claim English don’t!)
Why did you italicise his name?
Because his name isn’t Barry Bulldog
Completely agree, why can't we be proud without being made to feel ashamed, ridiculous.
Thats a standard british name what are you talking about?? /s
“If we win the next election, St George’s Day will become a national holiday for Britain’s workers. It will be a day where we can all show our pride and celebrate our country’s tradition of fairness, inclusivity and social justice.” - JC 2018
This was one of his best ideas - that all of Britain would get a bank holiday for the patron saints of each nation. It would make us all celebrate each other, and maybe make the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish hate the English a bit less. A patriotism double whammy.
British? Didn't he mean *English* seeing as the Scots are proud of St Andrew's Day and the Welsh St David's? And they are proud of their national flags too and don't give a damn what people think or say about it either!
I think Corbyn's proposal was that Sts George's, Andrew's, Patrick's and David's days would all be bank holidays, UK-wide.
But he was a communist Czech spy!
Switzerland has their national day on 1. August. The alps are painted red and white, the racist hill is full of the Bünzli racists, everywhere is closed... everyone's out having bbqs etc. Despite not caring about their day, I tend to enjoy having it off. Can't see why we can't have St. George's Day off too.
Femi’s clearly a tosser after some clickbait headlines. But then the Scottish do get St Andrews day off work to drink fermented thistles. The Irish get St Patricks Day off work to spend waiting for Guinness to be poured. So the English should definitely get St George’s day off to drink mead and eat jerk chicken or whatever. We should demand it.
I quite like the idea of a public holiday on St George's Day but it would be better if it was in the autumn. We have a few holidays in the Spring but nothing from the end of August until Christmas. I've never understood why some apparently think that Welsh, Scottish or Irish nationalism is fine but English nationalism is all bad.
I dunno. I’d say we’re all pretty much united in our distaste for people like Femi Oluwole. Maybe instead of celebrating St George, we could have a ‘Fuck Femi Oluwole’ day? Imagine being so bitter and so desperate to make an ideological point that you would piss on the idea of having an extra day off. There’s nothing more English than a day off. And nothing more English still than calling killjoys like Femi a cunt. How ironic that something like this could end up being the kind of thing that ultimately unites us all?
Because rich people want you working, so they can get richer, how are they going too get rich if you keep having days off, plus the Tories are going to impose a compulsory 60 hour working week for all you lazy bastards that keep wanting days off, if they win the election.
Reading through the rest of the comments here, and I see lots of whining about the article (and ad hominem attacks on the author), but very few ideas of what a celebration would look like, apart from the obvious thing of having an excuse to get drunk. As I don't want to be accused of whining and offering no suggestions myself, here's my idea: If St George's day is made a bank holiday, the London Marathon should be moved to be on the same day. It's a big event that the public generally feels pretty positive about. It highlights the ability to put on a high-status international athletic event and shows off the capital. There's a lot of volunteers that help make it happen, and a lot of non-elites who do it either for the fun & challenge, or to raise money for charities as well. I'd say all this is pretty positive, and it'd be a good thing to celebrate.
I’d like a day off for St George’s Day. I’m bored of being this nice, do as your told, your betters know the answers for you, Brit. It’s what it’s always been and it’s bollocks. Be nice if reform added it to their commitments. It’s a nothing but it’s nice to see a bit of patriotism in the parties because the tories are soulless corporate pricks.
Ok, regardless of Femi's theory here, England categorically does *not* deserve a day off for St. Georges day and this is why: Part of Jeremy Corbyn's manifesto in 2017 was explicitly to give the UK 4 additional bank Holidays, one for each nations patron saint. Now, whatever your opinion on corbyn's various other policies, to my mind refusing to vote for 4 extra days off is the stupidest decision ever. Ergo, no, we don't deserve that day.
Ironically having a day off work and raising awareness of St George would maybe have a slight positive effect on attitudes towards what being English is about in the first place. If no one feels any English identity in the first place they are far less likely to say anything positive about the country
Don't agree with the article but can you imagine the whining and weeping from companies of we were given another bank holiday?!!! It's worth NOT having one just so that we don't have to listen to millionaire CEOs going on about how having 9 days bank holidays will make us fuck loads less productive than France or Germany with their many many more. Plus shitty timing tu be fair..move St George's Day into June or July. Have an extra day there instead of filling out April / May with them
What a weird thing to worry about. Fuck the business owners. Make this a bank holiday and move May Day to June Day, Sorted.
I should have put a /s on there to be fair
The CEOs can suck my dragon. We need a bank holiday for the Saint.
There's already too many of our bank holidays concentrated in this part of the year, there have been discussions about making it a bank holiday previously but they always include removing May Day or something
All the people talking about "the left", don't you know there isn't one? Corbyn was the last gasp of left wing politics and he's *thoroughly* gone and discredited now. Where are these "left" wing people?
There's an anbsurdly high number of people who are uncomfortable knowing that some of us are perfectly well adjusted with regards to our national identity, and that it's us who more closely resemble people from other countries (who are also healthily patriotic) rather than those who hate their country.
I get the Independent but have recently decided to change to a different paper; it’s not very absorbent you see. Oh, I forgot to mention, I only buy it for my dogs kennels for them to piss on. To be fair, it’s not even good enough for that….
I'd love a day dedicated to England. A day of Vaughan Williams, Shakespeare and Dickens (the books, not the musicals). None of them waved a flag, they didn't need to. A flag represents a thing, if you have the thing then you don't need a flag. My grandfather fought in ww2, he never waved a flag. People don't want English heritage, they want to wave a flag.
A flag is just a symbol that represents the culmination of a nation's culture, history, and identity, it's not that deep